Just Friends

JUST FRIENDS

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.– Proverbs 17:17

Friendship is one of God’s greatest gifts to man. In fact, friendship is a foundational component of all healthy relationships.

Friends rejoice with us when times are good and mourn with us when times are bad. Friends support us when we need encouragement and admonish us when we need rebuking. Friends allow us to flourish during certain seasons of life and help us endure during others.

Friends provide healthy, positive social interaction. Friends allow transparency and authenticity. Friends offer a comfort zone, a helping hand, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, and unconditional love.

Friends are always there for us. Because a friend loves at all times.

No question, friends are a tremendous gift from God.

But if not properly guarded, friendship can be extremely dangerous. Friendship requires vulnerability and intimacy. Friendship necessitates an implicit trust that only results from the closeness associated with sharing who you are with another person. Friendship demands deep connections only possible as walls are lowered and an invitation is extended to experience a person’s true self. Friendship is inherently intimate.

That’s why men and women can never truly be “just friends.”

When God designed the first human relationship, he placed man and woman together in a marriage. He designed the woman specifically for the man and placed them together in the most intimate human relationship possible. In doing so, God ordained marriage as the ideal relationship and foundation for the human family.

At the heart of a healthy marriage relationship is an intimate friendship. A deeply-rooted friendship. A knowing of one another. A vulnerability and a transparency that surpasses all other friendships. It allows for a trust unlike any other to form. It allows physical intimacy to take place. It allows a healthy marriage to thrive.

For those who are married, maintaining and protecting this friendship is of the utmost importance. It is a sacred treasure to be guarded. And it is only to be shared within the marriage relationship itself. Therefore, husbands should not have female friends outside the marriage. Likewise, wives should not have male friends outside the marriage.

Husbands should not have female friends with whom they spend time, share meals, exchange texts or phone calls, or open themselves up in any way emotionally. That exclusive male-female bond is to be found in his wife. Similarly, wives should not turn to male friends for emotional support or to be a sounding board for their problems. Those responsibilities fall upon her husband’s shoulders.

To forsake these safeguards is to risk the most pivotal building block in the entire marriage relationship. Male-female friendship is designed to flourish exclusively within the confines of marriage.

For those who are not married, the truth is no less important. Men and women should pursue personal relationships with the opposite sex solely for the purpose of developing a friendship that could blossom into a potential marriage.

Unless marriage is the ultimate goal, developing a male-female friendship is futile. In fact, it inevitably leads to hurt.

Ultimately, a girl who has many male friends will be forced to dramatically alter the dynamics of those friendships or terminate them altogether when she one day gets married. In order to protect the marriage, the other friendships must not persist.

Similarly, a guy who maintains many female friendships may unintentionally be suggesting to them (or even himself) that he sees the potential for a deeper, more intimate relationship. Because male-female friendship is ultimately designed to be the center of a healthy marriage relationship.

Certainly, men and women can maintain acquaintances and mutual friends of the opposite sex. They can have conversations and interactions and exchanges of friendliness.

But to be friends is much more than that. To be friends is to be authentic and transparent and vulnerable. To be friends is to rejoice and to mourn. To encourage and to admonish. To be friends is to offer comfort, a helping hand, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, and unconditional love at all times.

And this type of friendship can only truly flourish between men and women within the confines of marriage. Otherwise, men and women can’t maintain this level of friendship.

They can’t truly be “just friends.”